Page 59 of Fable for the End of the World

Melinoë is watching me. I wonder if she can tell, somehow, that I’m remembering it, and the thought makes heat rise to my cheeks.

She’s probably just watching me because she’s still afraid I’m going to try to kill her. When I realize that, I feel enormously stupid and even more flushed in the face.

I could.When her guard is down, when her back is turned. The knife is still wedged in the shaft of my boot.

But we’re no closer to civilization than before, and four rickety wooden walls and a trip wire with some rusted cans are not going to stop the Wends. I’ll have to wait a little longer for salvation. Or rather, a little longer until I’m safe from the Wends and Melinoë is my only enemy.

I’m convinced that you’re human now.

Such simple words, spoken in the safety of darkness, but they unbalance me. They make everything inside me muddle and spin.I have to turn away from her, because I find that when I’m looking into her eyes, there’s nothing I can do to make my heart keep a steady rhythm.

The dead man’s cabin comes equipped with a wooden bucket, which I clear of cobwebs and dust and then carry down to the stream. I take deliberate, inching steps, careful not to disturb the trip wire. On my way out, I notice something sticking up from the ground, something that wasn’t there when I went inside last night.

Warily, I bend over to examine it. It’s a piece of shale, driven into the earth like a stake—or maybe like a gravestone. I’m standing precisely where I dug the man’s grave. But I didn’t put the stone there.

Melinoë must have done it.

Why?Some Outlier, she had called him, her tone contemptuous and remote. And that’s all he was, really. Not my brother, not my father. He has no one to mourn him. I stand up, my skin prickling.

Melinoë marked his grave.

I can’t stop thinking about it, as I walk to the stream. She told me last night that City folk think of us Outliers as no better than animals. So why go to the trouble? Burying a total stranger and marking their grave is more than a lot of Outliers would do for each other, in truth.

Beneath the bandages, my skin pulses with the memory of Melinoë’s touch. Her hands were warmer than I thought they would be. Gentler. She only looks cold from a distance. But up close—

I stop that train of thought in its tracks. I’m being sentimental, reckless. Because even a wolf can be gentle if it wants, but you should never forget its teeth.

It takes the better part of an hour to fill the bucket. I’m grateful for the distraction. I fix my mind on the task at hand and try not to think about my Angel or her hands or how Luka would roll his eyes at me in disgust. He would tell me to run and leave her for dead. Or maybe he’s overcome his inhibitions. Maybe he’d tell me to stick a knife in her back and be done with it.

My clean, bandaged hands make it apparent how filthy the rest of my body is. There’s a stark white line on my wrist where clean skin gives way to the dirt that’s ground into my arm, the accumulated grime of these past miserable days. It’s on all my limbs, my face, even my hair. Normally I can go a day or two without bathing, especially when we don’t have electricity to heat the water, but it’s been far longer than that, and I feel absolutely gamy. My clothes are so textured with dirt that they’ve all turned a drab shade of gray.

When I return to the cabin, lugging the heavy bucket and splashing a not insignificant amount of water on the floor, Melinoë is curled up on the bed. I’m relieved to see her resting—even with the rifle propped against the wall within arm’s reach.

There’s something shudder-inducing about wearing a dead man’s clothes, but my urgent need to be clean overpowers those qualms. I find a thick pair of cargo pants and a long flannel shirt unfolded in a trunk.

Melinoë stays asleep as I undress, quickly. I scrub at my skinuntil it turns pink. Beads of dirt roll off the crevices of my elbows and knees. I even manage to dip my hair into the bucket and comb through the knots with my fingers.

Goose bumps are rising along my limbs by the time I finish. The cabin doesn’t offer much heat on its own, and I haven’t gotten around to fiddling with the stove. But the pants and shirt are made of durable, moisture-wicking material, even if both are comically large on me. The shirt reaches almost to my knees, and when I stand up, I have to hold the waistband of the pants to keep them from falling down.

I’m holding up the pants with one hand and trying to wring out my hair with the other when Melinoë stirs.

“Whatare you doing?” she demands.

“Bathing,” I reply.

She looks at me as if I’ve grown a third eye and fins.

“I’m going to wash my clothes,” I say. “I’ll wash yours, too.”

“No.” Her cheeks fill with color. It’s a strange color, more purple than red, and maybe I didn’t recognize it before—but now she’s definitely blushing.

I have to bite my lip to keep from smiling. “Okay. Suit yourself.”

Melinoë sits up in bed. Very tensely, she watches me, fists clenched at her sides. I try to focus on scrubbing the clothes, but now I’m all too aware of her unblinking gaze. Water sloshes over the edge of the bucket and soaks the floor.

“Are you accustomed to doing this?” she asks.

“I’m a lot better at it... usually.”

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